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It's been a big year of redefining product freshness at Polygiene®. We've saved energy, shared the importance of Mindful Living®, and we feel good about the sustainability revolution we are driving as we head into 2023. This year has seen quite a few meaningful moments for the Polygiene brand - here are some of the highlights:
As we continue to revolutionise product protection worldwide, we welcomed ten new faces to the Polygiene team. Charlie and Bart joined our Americas team. We greeted Andrea, Niklas, Annika and Frank at Polygiene HQ. Damian, Matt and Stephanie started their Polygiene® careers in the UK, and Harold joined team Columbia.
As the rest of the globe, it had been 2.5+ years since the company had been together but this summer, we were able to host the whole team in Malmö, Sweden. For three full days, the entire company met for team-building activities, strategizing, and plenty of cooking, eating and dancing. We even enjoyed a few canal boat tours as we celebrated another year of successful sustainability initiatives.
Trade shows allow us to show Polygiene in action, to showcase the superpowers our technologies can give products. This year, we attended trade shows across the globe. Starting in Germany, we went to Outdoor by ISPO, AIX, Performance Days and ISPO; we then headed to the UK to visit Packing Innovation; next, and across the Atlantic, we went to Functional Fabric Fair and Outdoor Retailer in the USA; and finally, in China, we attended CIIE.
In October, we went to Annecy, France, to attend the European Outdoor Summit. The first summit to be held since the pandemic, the international conference invited the opportunity to learn how to be successful, sustainable and competitive in business. Through a series of engaging workshops and an insightful speaker program, we were able to reflect on our current strategies and plan for efficient future action.
Even though we work across the globe, we’re a small company, so our team is at the heart of our mission toward more Mindful Living®. We wanted our readers and followers to get to know the people behind Polygiene, so this year we launched Polygiene Voices. In this series, we share insight into their interests, their thoughts about the work we do and what Mindful Living means to them.
SteriTouch® has developed antimicrobial solutions since 2003, and in January, we celebrated the successful acquisition of the brand, welcoming it to the Polygiene Group. The antimicrobial sector continues to grow rapidly, and this excellent addition to the Polygiene Group aligns with our growth strategy to tackle 2023 and beyond. Together with our antimicrobial coating that effectively reduces the growth of microbes by up to 99.9%, we will continue to redefine product freshness and protection across multiple industries.
We partnered with Sweco®, one of the leading European engineering consultancies, to discover the environmental impact of washing less to save more. And the results blew us away. The Polygiene Life Cycle Assessment showed that washing items less frequently can reduce environmental impact by one-third, and by investing in garments with Polygiene StayFresh™ built-in, consumers can save energy, water and time.
At Polygiene, we’re uniquely placed to help to drive meaningful change in our world, to ensure products stay fresher for longer, help stop nasty microbes in their tracks and last as long as they possibly can before they need to be replaced. With the help of our innovative technologies, we want to help businesses and consumers make the change from consumables to durables. We call this Mindful Living, and we’re on a mission to enable, inspire and connect people to live more mindful lives. It’s inside everything we do – it’s in our DNA.
Joining the ISPO Collaborators club as a founding member, we are excited to join a passionate assembly of brands to develop new and innovative products with athletes in the industry. With 50 innovative brands in the club so far, we look forward to working towards our sustainability goals with this collaborative platform.
Supporting sustainable product and design innovations, we were absolutely delighted to be nominated for a SOG award this year, recognising the innovative Polygiene ViralOff™ technology and sustainable initiatives with our partner, Airinum. Addmaster was nominated for a Made in the Midlands Award in the export category, and we are thrilled to announce that the brand also received a Queen’s Award. The Polygiene subsidiary accepted its third Queen’s award, with the latest Innovation award recognising the company’s contribution to improving public hygiene and eliminating plastic waste by creating a range of reusable plastics.
Earlier this year, the Polygiene subsidiary, Addmaster, also supported a key Innovation Day hosted by the Society of Food Hygiene and Technology (SOFHT). During the event, Addmaster showed how antimicrobial technology has helped improve hygiene in high-traffic/high-risk areas in the food industry.
We look forward to driving our sustainability revolution into 2023 and beyond as we work with more amazing brands to change consumables to durables, save important environmental resources and start making impactful decisions to protect our Earth.
